NEO SPARTAN ADVENTUUUUURES 3

Session 3

We interrupt our regularly scheduled childhood trauma for: “Saving Private Randy”.

4 members of the Nerv Tactical Unit find themselves in a Helicopter, with a woman named Miranda and Dr.Long on the vid screen.

He sets the conversation off to a good start with “What I’m asking you to do… Is treason.”
The team was ordered to enter a room and capture a man, while “team 2 will retrieve the second package”.

Pvt. Berger questions how they’d get into a locked room without overkilling by using Grenade Launchers, only to get bitched at by Miranda for being too lazy and having such little initiative that he can’t even consider using his feet to kick it down.

The squad find themselves outside a hotel, seemingly in China. With no Less-Lethal weaponry. Berger searches for a way in other than the double doors, finding one quickly. The squad follow Berger’s pathfinding, entering through an unlocked window around the back.

Staff are declared expendable by Miranda. Berger and Pvt. Rand fail to sneak in, being spotted by the receptionist.

As he moves for a button, Rand fails to intimidate him and Hodges ruins his right arm. Berger restrains the downed man, while starting to clear up the blood with the man’s jacket. While Rand learns he doesn’t speak English or German. They pat the receptionist down, finding money, an ID and a watch. He gave next to no useful information, as the doors are locked with swipe cards of which he had none. Rand snaps the man’s neck, while Berger moves to the stairwell and PFC. Hesseman tosses the body in a dumpster. Rand and Cpl. Hodges can’t make use of the computer to produce working cardkeys, while Berger throws over a sofa to make a gunrest facing the elevator.

Berger heads over to the computer and manages to get it working.  Rand and Hodges trash the place to make it look like a robbery. The team heads upwards, with Heeseman covering the lobby with the grenadelauncher as Berger holds the Second floor and Rand and Hodges clear the third floor.
Rand peers around a door, narrowly avoiding being shot as he does so. Rand and Hodges breach into the section of corridor, facing off against 4 gunmen firing unsilenced bullets. The hostiles prove terrible shots, while Berger sticks to the 2nd floor to cover the elevator and stairwell. Rand and Hodges quickly notice that their gunmen are a diverse UN strike team. However, the revelation momentarily distracts Hodges, who is shot clean through the chest.

Rand lives up to his extensive military training, and promptly misses. Hodges does more promisingly, putting a round through a hostile. Heeseman charges up to the Second floor, freeing Berger to move up to the 3rd. Meanwhile, three of the grunts fail to put bullets anywhere near Rand, as Berger puts a bullet in one of the UN operatives. Rand continues to be untouchable, as he backs up, downing one of the wounded enemies as he goes. Hodges puts another shell through the man Berger had hit, leaving him barely standing. Heeseman meets the others in the stairwell, launching a grenade into the room to hit all three targets.

There seems to be no rooms on the 3rd floor, and only a ladder. They start bitching at Miranda for having such bad intel. Rand puts on the uniform of the least burnt and shot individual, and takes point in disguise. As he opens a trapdoor, he’s met by a violent explosion against his arm. Berger, while professionally bitching with Cpl. Hodges, heads up and spots two enemies, as they spot him. Hesseman is shortly behind, and pops up to launch a grenade into the room. They blow a hole in the room, killing the two men outside, and a figure emerges from the fire and smoke.

The target.

Riku Tsunetomo.

Someone who seems remarkably reluctant to “Get in the bag”. They blow a hole in the roof, making a skylight exit via helicopter.

Riku is returned to NERV authority, one month before the 3rd Angel fight.

PRESENT DAAAAAAAY

Riku is being led down dark hallways by Commander MacArthur. Sharon offers some polite smalltalk, including some congratulations on his Promotion to Major. Riku, having seemingly learnt of the danger of Sharon, says as little as possible. Sharon continues, explaining that they can now trust him more, and can be more open with why he’s here. He’s led very deep, to a heavily reinforced door.
It’s labelled “the Nazareth Labyrinth” in near-neon lighting. After getting Riku’s confirmation, Sharon leads him in. It’s more hallways, seemingly circling, but always headed down. It goes for about 10 minutes, before reaching a small elevator at the end, which Riku enters in after thanking Sharon.

Within the elevator are three buttons, of which she pushes the first.

It descends a substantial amount into a nearly unlit area, before offering a pleasant “ding”.
Opening into a colossal, almost perfectly white room. Sharon says “Welcome to the garden of Gethsemane”. She smiles, and leads him in.

The moment he steps onto the white floor, there is a flash, and the room turns into an apparent replica of Tokyo-2. He returns to white as he steps back. Sharon doesn’t respond to his questions, as he cannot see her while not within the white room. The elevator is still behind him as he’s in his living room of Tokyo-2. Everything seems real. Out the window is Tokyo-2 in all its shining glory.

He yells “Hachiro?” and is met by a call of “Onii-chan~!”. His brother appears before him. It seems, after questioning, that it’s the afternoon before Second Impact. September 12, 2000. His brother seems unhappy at him having been gone, but is happy to have him back. Riku is almost on the verge of tears. His little bro doesn’t notice. Riku breaks away, and starts exploring the house. Everything’s just as he remembered it. As he heads out back, he discovers he can head into his garden in Tokyo-2, and the rest of the city from it.

He returns to the elevator. He can see Sharon in the white room, moving around. She gives no response to his words. He steps back into Tokyo-2. Hachiro is gone from where he was. He quickly assumes that every time he steps out, it resets, allowing him to relive the moment over and over again. He’s not sure how to feel about this. He heads to his room. He stays within the simulation. It passes to the evening of September 13 – with no Second Impact. He leaves for the elevator, and returns.

At midday, September 12. But Riku still looks as old as he is. Although Hachiro tells him he is 15 years younger. Riku goes back to his room. Everything is the exact same as it was before – right down to what the people outside are doing. Riku loses it, and manly tears are shed. Hachiro hears, comes up to his room, and asks what’s wrong. Riku’s crying so hard he can’t even reply.

Riku’s eyes flutter open. He’s in a hospital bed. Hachiro is nowhere to be seen. He’s alone, in a hospital room. SERF, Anchorage. He falls asleep from exertion. Riku, an indeterminate amount of time later, is shook awake by Commander MacArthur. He was out for two weeks. He never left the Garden. They had to shut the machine down to retrieve him. Sharon tries to question him on what he saw. It seems the machine shows you what you want to see most. Riku denies that – he wanted a way to save him, not to simply watch what was.

Sharon returns discussion to his responsibility in the shutdown of the machine. It seems they’d need to fly in people from Berlin to look at it. She finally reminds him that everything he saw within there was classified – before saying how that machine is worth dieing for. She leaves. Riku starts tracing the scar on his left shoulder. Riku rips his way clear of the IVs, looking for his clothes and his pain meds.

As Riku leaves, he feels something in his pocket, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. His pain meds were also confiscated. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something there. He decides to keep walking, and pretend that he’s sane. As he goes, the feeling gets lighter, until eventually he can’t feel it anymore. As he returns to his desk, he spots a woman. She starts bitching at him for only finally getting up.

It seems he missed an Angel fight. All he can get from the woman is that the kids are fine. He asks her name. She’s Dr. Miranda Bernhard.

She explains that the Angel fight was two weeks ago.